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VOL. 29 | ISSUE 01 PROJECT CENSORED ARTWORK: ANSON STEVENS-BOLLEN

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Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine Signs Intoxicating Hemp Ban, New Marijuana Regulations Into Law BY M EGA N H E N RY, O H I O CA P ITA L J O U R N A L

NEWS Prosecutors Allege Cincinnati ICE Leader Abused Non-Citizen Girlfriend for Years

Federal prosecutors cite videos, medical records and prior police responses as they argue the suspended ICE supervisor should remain jailed before trial. BY MADELINE FENING Content warning: This story includes descriptions of domestic violence and self-harm.

Details of alleged verbal and physical abuse

One video played in court allegedly depicts Saxon calling the woman a “stupid fucking bitch” and threatening to kill her: “If I see you here in three days, you will be executed.” In another, Saxon can allegedly be heard calling the woman a “scum whore” while spraying her with soap. Prosecutors cited medical reports in court detailing a pattern of physical violence from Saxon against the woman. Garcia pointed to an April 2025 medical report showing Saxon’s girlfriend was hospitalized for a broken pelvis, a record she later showed to Blue Ash Police when asking for help. BAPD records show a report was made two days before the alleged Dec. 5 attack detailing her injuries from April, but she ultimately declined medical attention and was instructed to reach out to the Cincinnati Police Department. Garcia also pointed to an August incident when EMTs responded to Saxon’s apartment to find his girlfriend appearing “emaciated.” When an officer asked her why she had not left Saxon, she reportedly responded, “I’m trying but it’s hard.”

ederal prosecutors detailed years of alleged domestic abuse by a Cincinnati-based U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) supervisor against his non-citizen girlfriend during a federal court hearing on Dec. 22. U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Karen Litkovitz agreed with Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Garcia that Samuel Saxon, 47, should remain in the Butler County Jail while his federal case plays out, calling the suspended ICE leader a “violent individual.” Saxon, an assistant field office director for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) in Cincinnati, faces several state charges for allegedly strangling his girlfriend on Dec. 5 at their Corryville apartment. Court records state officers observed visible bruising on the woman’s neck and that witnesses saw Saxon place her in a chokehold before dragging her into an apartment. An officer testified in a Dec. 12 Hamilton County hearing that police have been called to the apartment roughly two dozen times in the last year and a half. Saxon pleaded not guilty to state charges of felonious assault, strangulation and domestic violence; next came a federal charge. On Dec. 19, Saxon was charged with lying to investigators during an interview with a Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General (DHS OIG) agent. Prosecutors claim Saxon lied to the DHS OIG agent about his contact with the victim on Dec. 5. Saxon was transferred Dec. 19 from the Hamilton County Jail to the Butler County Jail, where ICE detainees in southwest Ohio are held under a contract with the federal government. The jail also houses federal prisoners under a separate agreement with the U.S. Marshals Service. Saxon pleaded not guilty to the federal charge on Dec. 22. During that hearing, Garcia showed video clips from as far back as 2020 that appear to depict Saxon being abusive to his girlfriend. Prosecutors said the alleged victim is a noncitizen who was 18 years old when she started dating Saxon, who was 40.

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Concerns about ongoing employee reviews It’s unclear if this is the first time DHS OIG has investigated Saxon, or if any internal agency review has taken place regarding the dozens of police calls made to his apartment in Cincinnati. According to an affidavit, the DHS OIG agent who recommended his federal charge investigated Saxon’s case because her “duties include investigating whether a DHS employee has committed a crime and preparing a report to ICE regarding whether one of its employees has engaged in criminal misconduct.” DHS claims to conduct ongoing reviews of its workforce after initial background checks, but a recent NBC News investigation shows current and former officials have raised concerns about lapses in vetting, especially under the Trump administration’s second-term immigration crackdown.

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Samuel Saxon, 47, was transferred from the Hamilton County Jail to the Butler County Jail on Dec. 19 where he remains in federal custody. Charges stem from a Dec. 5 domestic violence investigation. P H OTO : BU T L E R C O U N T Y JA I L

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine holds up intoxicating hemp product Nerdy Bears and Nerds Gummy Clusters

CityBeat has requested Saxon’s personnel file from ICE but has yet to receive an answer as of press time. Publicly available information from the agency includes a 2016 news release showing Saxon received a departmental service award for long-term contributions to the agency. But prosecutors cited Saxon’s prior police interactions in court, including an incident first reported by his supervisor at ICE. Garcia pointed to a September 2022 incident where Saxon’s boss called police to do a welfare check after he failed to show up for work or contact anyone for 16 hours. She said a police report shows officers found Saxon in his home naked on the toilet holding a knife to his neck. Garcia also said Saxon has a previous conviction for driving under the influence; she told the court that alcohol abuse may be linked to Saxon’s alleged domestic violence. Prosecutors said Saxon’s ICE supervisor described him as having a bad temper, telling investigators that he will “go off” unexpectedly. “He is a loose cannon,” Garcia said in court. Lynn Tramonte, executive director of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance, said Saxon’s case is emblematic of former Cincinnati ICE agent Andrew Golobic. who in March was sentenced to 12 years in prison for “crimes related to using his position to solicit and coerce sex from vulnerable women under his supervision” at work, according to federal prosecutors. “There’s a real problem with gender-based violence by ICE agents, and the

agency is not taking it seriously,” said Tramonte. “Andrew Golobic used his position of power against women who feared deportation to extort sex. The police have been called to Samuel Saxon’s home 22 times for domestic violence, yet he’s remained in his job to this day. Anyone familiar with the pattern of domestic violence knows strangulation is part of a pattern of escalating behavior that often ends in murder.” “We want answers from the Detroit ICE Field Office and Cincinnati Local Office,” Tramonte continued. “Do ICE agents have to inform their employer when they come under scrutiny by other law enforcement agencies? If no, why not?” Saxon has been suspended from his job at ICE since his arrest, according to statements made by his attorneys in court. For now, Saxon’s federal case will take precedent over his state case, but those charges still remain. A federal jury trial has been set for Feb. 23, with a final pretrial hearing on Feb. 18. If you are experiencing domestic violence, the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233 is free, available 24/7 and allows you to speak confidentially with trained advocates who can help you develop a plan to reach safety. If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, contact the National Suicide and Crisis hotline by calling or texting 988 to get help from a trained crisis counselor.

P H O T O : M E G A N H E N R Y, O H I O C A P I TA L J O U R N A L

hio Gov. Mike DeWine signed a bill into law Dec. 19 that bans intoxicating hemp products and makes various changes to the state’s voter-passed marijuana law, including adding crimes such as making it illegal to bring legally purchased marijuana from another state back to Ohio. DeWine signed Ohio Senate Bill 56, which will take effect in 90 days. He has been urging Ohio lawmakers to do something about intoxicating hemp products for the past nearly two years. Ohio’s bill complies with recent federal changes by banning intoxicating hemp products from being sold outside of a licensed marijuana dispensary. In November, Congress voted to ban products that contain 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container earlier this month when they voted to reopen the government. Those who work in the intoxicating hemp industry are worried this will put thousands of people out of business. DeWine line-itemed vetoed the THC-infused beverage provision in the bill that would have allowed five milligram THC beverages to be manufactured, distributed, and sold in Ohio until Dec. 31, 2026. “My veto means that they cannot be sold,” DeWine said during a Dec. 19 press conference. “…The simplest thing, frankly, to do is to stop it right now instead of going until the date in November set by federal law.” DeWine said he does not think THC

beverages are a good idea. “Ohio is making good public policy by enacting its own intoxicating hemp ban earlier than federal law,” DeWine said in his veto message. “However, a carve out to allow the further sale of intoxicating hemp beverages for most of 2026 will create confusion for consumers and a lack of conformity with federal law.” Ohio S.B. 56 had a provision that said if the federal government legalizes THC beverages, Ohio will consider “a more robust regulatory framework of these products,” according to the bill’s language. “We got to this point because of poorly drafted federal legislation and people taking advantage of it,” Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, said. “So speculating about what the federal government may do in the future and what we may do as a result, I think, adds to the same problem that has already been created.” On the marijuana side, the bill would reduce the THC levels in adult-use marijuana extracts from a maximum of 90% down to a maximum of 70%, cap THC levels in adult-use flower to 35%, and prohibit smoking in most public places. The bill gets rid of protections against discrimination for housing, employment, and organ donation. It also allows police to have probable cause during traffic stops if someone is a known user of marijuana. The bill prohibits possessing marijuana in anything outside of its original packaging and criminalizes bringing legal marijuana

from another state back to Ohio. It also requires drivers to store marijuana in the trunk of their car while driving. Ohio S.B. 56 would give 36% of adult-use marijuana sale revenue to municipalities and townships that have recreational marijuana dispensaries. The bill also maintains the 10% tax rate on recreational marijuana and keeps home grow the same at six plants per adult and 12 per residence. It also places a cap on 400 marijuana dispensaries in the state. Ohioans passed a citizen-initiated law to legalize recreational marijuana in 2023 with 57% of the vote. Sales started in August 2024 and exceeded $702.5 million in the first year. Ohio lawmakers can change the law since it passed as a citizen initiative not a constitutional amendment, something they have been trying to do since late 2023. Ohioans for Cannabis Choice said they will be launching a referendum campaign “S.B. 56 forcefully defies the will of the voters of Ohio,” said Dennis Willard, spokesperson for Ohioans for Cannabis Choice. “We believe voters will say no to government overreach, no to closing 6,000 small businesses and pink-slipping thousands of workers across the state, and no to once again re-criminalizing hemp and marijuana.” This story was originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal and republished here with permission.

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PROJECT CENSORED’S LIST OF BURIED STORIES HITS HALF-CENTURY MARK

ARTWORK: ANSON STEVENS-BOLLEN

By Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor, RLnews

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alf a century ago, Peter Jensen launched Project Censored, in part as a response to how the Watergate break-in was covered. Richard Nixon didn’t censor the initial reporting, but he didn’t have to. The press simply didn’t cover it with any serious scrutiny until well after Nixon was elected. The story didn’t reach the American people when it mattered most — when they could have done something about it directly themselves, before they went to the polls in November 1972. Reflecting this, Jensen saw censorship as working differently in a democracy than in a dictatorship. He defined it as “the suppression of information, whether purposeful or not, by any method — including bias, omission, under-reporting, or self-censorship — that prevents the public from fully knowing what is happening in society.” That happened with Watergate, though the truth belatedly came out. And an echo of the same sort of thing happened just as I was writing this half a century later. Six members of Congress who had served in the military or the CIA released a video accurately informing those serving, as they had, that they have the right — and in some cases the duty — to refuse unlawful or unconstitutional orders. President Trump responded on social media by falsely claiming their video message was “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH,” but the New York Times relegated the story to page 16, with a headline that didn’t mention Trump’s call for their execution. “No wonder Trump thinks he can get away with anything,” said Mark Jacob, a former top editor at both the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune. This was only a faint echo of what happened with Watergate — especially given the Times’ diminished gate-keeping role. But those echoes are everywhere around us, every day.

That same dynamic of suppression of information by under-reporting and self-censorship is constantly at play, with the same consequence of preventing the public from fully knowing what’s happening in society — particularly in time to do something about it. For half a century now, Project Censored has been bringing these omissions to light, and while each story highlights a particular omission, they are often complex and interrelated to each other. There’s a perfect example in this year’s top censored story — “ICE Solicits Social Media Surveillance Contracts to Identify Critics.” Government spying on, suppressing and even criminalizing its critics goes back at least to World War I as a systematic endeavor, but new elements have intertwined with it over time. Racial targeting, private contracting and omnipresent surveillance technology are all present in this most recent example, and are routinely censored in other settings as well. It’s also an example of systemic abusive policing, which shows up again in stories seven and eight, targeting the homeless for private profit in the first story, and killing four people a day in the second one, mostly in response to 9/11 calls, the majority of which involved a non-violent offense, or no offense at all. Racial targeting is also involved in this story (with Black people and Native Americans far more likely to be killed), as well as in stories number three and four, regarding systemic exploitation of Native Americans and targeting of pro-Palestinian activists, respectively. Stories four through six involve tech surveillance in different ways, not just targeting activists but also systematically blocking data privacy protections for everyone, and using surveillance technology to harm workers and disrupt unionization at Amazon and Walmart, the largest private employers in America. In turn, the class exploitation and

oppression involved in this last example appears in two others as well, number seven, about private companies reaping over $100 million to sweep homeless camps in California (doing nothing to solve the problem), and number 10 about about the extreme under-representation of working class Americans in state legislatures — a censored story about censored voices that fittingly rounds out the list. This is the deeper point of Project Censored’s list: That it’s not just about this or that suppressed and under-reported story, it’s about a whole different way of seeing the world if that systemic censoring were stripped away. Here, then, is Project Censored’s half-century anniversary list, so you can see for yourself what that means.

“Apparently, ICE is feeling it might deal with a bit more backlash than normal now that Trump is back in charge and promising to expel as many immigrants as he can as quickly as he can.” So wrote Techdirt contributor Tim Cushing in February 2025, commenting on reporting by Sam Biddle for The Intercept, based on a lengthy ICE bid request also reported on by the Independent. It solicited private contractors to “monitor and locate ‘negative’ social media discussion” about the agency. Biddle noted it was “nearly identical” to one from 2020, “which resulted in a $5.5 million contract between [ICE] and Barbaricum, a Washington-based defense and intelligence contractor.” But given the much more sweeping and aggressive role ICE was now poised for, the significance was more chilling. “People

who simply criticize ICE online could be pulled into the dragnet,” Biddle wrote. Saying the document cited increased threats was “being far too kind,” Cushing noted, since “The request for services simply says this is happening, without actually citing anything” as evidence. Social media content “hostile to ICE” could encompass millions of posts per day, but the document specified that content creators should be assessed for “proclivity for violence” using “social and behavioral sciences” and “psychological profiles.” After compiling personal information (Social Security numbers, addresses, etc.), contractors are to provide ICE with a “photograph, partial legal name, partial date of birth, possible city, possible work affiliations, possible school or university affiliation, and any identified possible family members or associates.” It also requests “facial recognition capabilities that could take a photograph of a subject and search the Internet to find all relevant information associated with the subject.” While the document starts “as though this is just a preventative measure to ensure the safety of government employees,” Cushing noted, “there’s plenty of wording later in the document that makes it clear ICE is looking for tech that allows it to monitor people simply because they don’t like ICE.” The First Amendment threats are clear, Cushing noted: The government shouldn’t be actively monitoring social media users, much less for the stated purpose of tallying the amount of negative references caught in the dragnet. Even if all the information is ‘open source’ (i.e., scraped from publicly-accessible social media accounts), this is not a legitimate use of government power. It’s especially questionable when the agency desiring to deploy this power can’t seem to differentiate clearly between negative comments and ‘threats’ against ICE personnel.

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Again, the bid request wasn’t new. “In 2019, the Guardian exposed that ICE agents had used a series of fake social media profiles linked to a fictitious university to entrap foreign students allegedly seeking to stay in the United States illegally,” Project Censored noted. Further abuses using fake profiles were reported by the Guardian in 2023 as well. That same year, writing for 404 Media, John Cox reported on ICE’s use of a system “to help the agency scrutinize social media posts, determine if they are ‘derogatory’ to the U.S., and then use that information as part of immigration enforcement.” This was based on documents from an ACLU Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. While Forbes and the New York Times have covered ICE’s investment in digital technologies targeting immigrants, there was no corporate media coverage of the planned targeting of ICE critics at the time of Project Censored’s evaluation.

“Nearly 30 million people are living in areas of the US with limited water supplies,” Carey Gillam reported for The New Lede environmental news website in January 2025. But that’s based on a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) study — the first of its kind — that assessed water availability in the United States from 2010 to 2020, with a special focus on water quality. And with worsening conditions due to climate change, things could get significantly worse. Project Censored also noted two other concerns from the top 10 lists of the last two years: the problem of saltwater intrusion and pollution from “forever chemicals” (PFAS), which don’t break down naturally and are linked to cancer, liver problems, birth defects and a host of other serious diseases. USGS Director David Applegate warned of “increasing challenges to this vital resource,” Gillam reported, adding that “People who are considered ‘socially vulnerable’ have a higher risk of experiencing limited water supplies.” Widespread pollution was a concern “in waterways across the US Midwest and High Plains regions where worrisome levels of nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations – tied in large part to large animal agriculture operations – can pose a threat to human health,” she noted, adding: The USGS said that “substantial areas” of aquifers that provide about one-third of public water supplies have elevated concentrations of contaminants such as arsenic, manganese, radionuclides, and nitrate, and that low-income and minority-dominated communities and people with domestic wells as their drinking water source experience increased exposure to this type of drinking water contamination. Project Censored noted specific examples of problems in Texas “because of ongoing drought, infrastructure challenges, and international water rights disputes,” and Florida,

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with “shortages of fresh water because of rising populations and overexploitation of groundwater … exacerbated by global warming, which has led to more intense, more frequent floods and hurricanes that overwhelm wastewater systems, as well as to periods of drought.” Elsewhere, “In Virginia, large data centers use as much as five million gallons of water a day, according to a May 2024 report in Grist,” they noted. “Tech companies are consuming massive amounts of groundwater in areas that are already facing water shortages due to rising temperatures.” Project Censored then widened the lens in two ways. First, it noted reporting by Stephan Prager of Common Dreams based on a joint U.S./UN report, Drought Hotspots Around the World 2023-2025. “This is not a dry spell. This is a slow-moving global catastrophe, the worst I’ve ever seen,” report co-author Dr. Mark Svoboda said. “This report underscores the need for systematic monitoring of how drought affects lives, livelihoods, and the health of the ecosystems that we all depend on.” In this context, in 2024, “48 of the 50 U.S. states faced drought conditions, the highest proportion ever seen,” Prager wrote. Second, it noted a Guardian report that “The Trump administration has ordered the closure of 25 scientific centers that monitor US waters for flooding and drought, and manage supply levels to ensure communities around the country don’t run out of water,” essentially blinding us to the problem. “Both the New York Times and Washington Post have covered the fact that large swaths of the United States are currently struggling with drought conditions,” Project Censored noted. But this discussion is typically framed in terms of the “economic threat to agriculture and other industries rather than as a direct threat to human life.” As of July 2025, Newsweek was the only U.S. corporate news outlet that appeared to have discussed the USGS report on limited water supplies.

Government mistreatment of Indigenous communities was the subject of a series of articles published in 2024-25 by ProPublica, High Country News and Grist, which were picked up by other independent news outlets but were largely ignored by the corporate media. The plight of tribal colleges due to longstanding underfunding was reported on by Matt Krupnick in ProPublica, while Anna Smith and Maria Parazo Rose reported on a detailed collaborative High Country News/ Grist investigation of how states profit from “trust lands” held on federal Indigenous reservations, generating funding for, among other things, public state universities. This follows on earlier reporting by Grist and other partners in 2020, focused on how the 1862

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Morrill Act granted expropriated Indigenous land to state governments in order to fund universities. Thus, there’s a deep, longstanding connection between these two facets of historic injustice. “In the 1970s, Congress committed to funding a higher education system controlled by Indigenous communities,” Krupnick explained. “These tribal colleges and universities were intended to serve students who’d been disadvantaged by the nation’s history of violence and racism toward Native Americans, including efforts to eradicate their languages and cultures.” There are now 37 schools in the system, spanning 14 states, but they’ve always been woefully underfunded. In the original 1978 law, funding was set at $8,000 annually per student affiliated with a tribe, with adjustments for inflation. But those levels have never been met. “Since 2010, per-student funding has been as low as $5,235 and sits at just under $8,700 today,” Krupnick reported, compared to about $40,000 per student if the law had been followed. In total, it’s $250 million less than was promised. While the failures have been longstanding and bipartisan, as Project Censored described, they’ve gotten even worse under Trump. In a March 2025 follow-up, Krupnick reported, “At least $7 million in USDA grants to tribal colleges and universities have been suspended,” affecting both student scholarships and food and agricultural research. At the same time, Project Censored noted, “federal policy allows state governments to profit from tribal ‘trust lands’ which support, among other things, state land grant universities.” In 2020, writing for High Country News, Robert Lee and Tristan Ahtone reported on the original sin of the land grant universities’ creation under the 1862 Morrill Act, and its consequences. It redistributed nearly 11 million acres, “an area larger than Massachusetts and Connecticut combined,” that was “broken up into almost 80,000 parcels of land, scattered mostly across 24 Western states,” they reported. They “reconstructed approximately 10.7 million acres taken from nearly 250 tribes, bands and communities through over 160 violence-backed land cessions, a legal term for the giving up of territory.” Then, Project Censored said, in February 2024, came the Grist/High Country News report, “detailing how 1.6 million acres of ‘trust lands’ managed by state agencies ‘generate millions of dollars for public schools, universities, penitentiaries, hospitals and other state institutions, typically through grazing, logging, mining and oil and gas production.’” These lands were seized during what’s known as the Allotment Era, following the passage of the 1887 General Allotment Act, also known as the Dawes Act. As Project Censored summarized: “The federal government seized ninety million acres of reservation land from the tribes, labeling it as ‘surplus,’ and gave it to non-Native owners and states entering the union. The program dismantled tribal power and opened tribal lands and natural resources to non-Native citizens.” States furthered the process of carving up and dissolving tribal lands, some of which resulted in state-owned lands inside of reservations — 83 of them in 10 states, according to their research, which resulted in a database of state trust land lessees, searchable by Native American reservation. This involved painstaking research, since many states don’t make trust land data public. “Even in the obscure world of trust lands, states’ holdings within

reservations have been almost completely unknown until now,” Smith and Rose noted. “The presence of state lands on reservations complicates issues of tribal jurisdiction in regards to land use and management and undercuts tribal sovereignty. “In some cases, tribes lease these state trust lands within their reservations — essentially paying to use what was once their own land,” they wrote. “An estimated 58,000 acres across several states are leased back to Indigenous tribes for agriculture, grazing, and other uses.” Their report cited the case of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes in Montana, which “may have created a model for how tribes can negotiate for large-scale transfers of land back to tribal ownership,” they said. “In 2020, Congress passed a water-rights settlement that cleared the way for the transfer of nearly 30,000 acres of Montana state trust land back to the tribe,” and Montana will receive federal lands elsewhere in exchange. “Corporate news media have largely ignored these issues,” Project Censored noted, except for a New York Times report about tribes and students suing over layoffs dictated by Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, but it neglected historical underfunding described by ProPublica. A similar story ran in the Washington Post.

“A sweeping crackdown on posts on Instagram and Facebook that are critical of Israel—or even vaguely supportive of Palestinians—was directly orchestrated by the government of Israel,” since Oct. 7, 2023, Drop Site News reported in April 2025, calling it “the largest mass censorship operation in modern history.” “The data show that Meta has complied with 94% of takedown requests issued by Israel since October 7, 2023,” they reported. “Israel is the biggest originator of takedown requests globally,” which “allows individuals, organizations, and government officials to request the removal of content that allegedly violates Meta’s policies.” This resulted in “an estimated 38.8 million additional posts being ‘actioned upon’ across Facebook and Instagram since late 2023. ‘Actioned upon’ in Facebook terms means that a post was either removed, banned, or suppressed.” The report was based on internal company data supplied by whistle-blowers and confirmed by “multiple independent sources inside Meta.” While a significant majority of Israel’s requests “fall under Meta’s ‘terrorism’ or ‘violence and incitement’ categories,” the reporters noted, all of them “contain the same complaint text, according to the leaked information, regardless of the substance of the underlying content being challenged.” None of them describes the exact nature of the content being reported, “even though the requests link to an average of 15 different pieces of content.”

The requests “have overwhelmingly targeted users from Arab and Muslim-majority nations,” but the takedown campaign is global in scope, resulting in censorship of posts from users in more than 60 different countries. Not only is it censoring users in real time, “Israel’s censorship project will echo well into the future,” they reported, “the AI program Meta is currently training how to moderate content will base future decisions on the successful takedown of content critical of Israel’s genocide,” according to their inside sources. Project Censored noted, “The Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned Meta’s actions, stating, ‘Meta must stop censoring criticism of the Israeli government under the guise of combating antisemitism, and Meta must stop training artificial intelligence tools to do so.’” And it highlights the fact that Israel censors and controls press coverage of its military operations, as reported in June 2025, by the Committee to Protect Journalists. “The Drop Site News article on Meta’s compliance with Israeli censorship requests has been republished by independent outlets, including ZNetwork and Jewish Voice for Labour,” Project Censored noted, “but despite its alarming revelations, this story does not appear to have been picked up by any major US newspapers or broadcast news outlets as of July 2025.” Nor is there any sign that Meta will stop censoring users at Israel’s request.

“Big Tech companies are actively attempting to undermine legislation that protects consumer data privacy,” Project Censored reports, using the same playbook tobacco companies used in the 1990s. This was reported by Jake Snow in an article published by Tech Policy Press and the ACLU of Northern California in October 2024. “The biggest names in technology are trying to use their might to force Congress to override crucial state-level privacy laws that have protected people for years,” Snow wrote. Federal law overrides state or local law whenever there’s a conflict — a legal doctrine known as “preemption.” There’s actually a three-step strategy involved, he explained. Step one is “Respond to a PR crisis with a flood of deceptive bills.” A Big Tobacco example was laws creating “smoking sections” to defeat laws creating outright bans, such as the Beverly Hills smoke-free restaurant ordinance. Big Tech today has “opened a firehose of lobbying money to replace real privacy laws with fake industry alternatives as ineffective as non-smoking sections,” Snow wrote. He cites a 2021 Virginia law that was “provided by an Amazon lobbyist” and “predictably, it was ‘just what Big Tech wants’” Step two is “Point to the patchwork” of ineffective laws they’ve produced. Big Tobacco did this in the ’90s, he noted. “They pushed op-eds arguing that a ‘patchwork of local laws is no way to fight smoking.’” Similarly, “Tech

lobbyists love to complain about the ‘patchwork’—meaning diverse state privacy laws. It’s the tech industry’s favorite talking point,” Snow wrote. “They even created a website called ‘United for Privacy: Ending the Privacy Patchwork.’” Step three is “Use preemption to kill the grassroots movement” by making further progress almost impossible. “The final step for Big Tobacco then, and Big Tech now, is to use preemption to erase state laws and curb a state’s ability to pass new, stronger laws in the future,” Snow wrote. Federal legislation need not preempt state and local law. Like the federal minimum wage law, it can be a floor, not a ceiling. “Federal law should establish a foundation that cities and states can build on, not a ceiling blocking all future progress,” Snow argued. “Cities and states are nimbler than Congress, and historically are where real change begins. In 1972, California enshrined a right to privacy in the state constitution that offers powerful protections against modern privacy abuses,” he explained. But “Once state legislatures are sealed, power decreases dramatically for grassroots activists, communities of color, and other groups that have limited access to the halls of Congress and far fewer resources to make their voices heard.” It’s already been tried. The House version of Trump’s controversial “Big Beautiful Bill” included a provision “shielding tech companies for ten years from being sued in state courts for negligence, privacy violations, or misuse of artificial intelligence.” The Senate removed that provision, but Big Tech will surely try again. These efforts to override state-level regulations “have received only partial corporate news coverage,” Project Censored noted. It cited several examples from the New York Times, Time magazine and others dealing with different aspects of the big picture Snow described. “However, none of this reporting has fully addressed the scale and coordinated effort detailed in Snow’s report, nor has it drawn attention to the clear historical parallels between current Big Tech strategies and the precedent set by Big Tobacco in its attempts to delay and dilute public health regulations.”

Walmart and Amazon are the two largest retailers in America, with a combined workforce of over 2.7 million workers (not counting Amazon drivers), whose lives have been made more miserable by the use of surveillance technology, as documented in an April 2024 report from Oxfam America, At Work and Under Watch.” The report finds that “regimes of measurement, surveillance, discipline, and data collection deployed by both companies unduly punish workers, stifle worker voice, and have negative impacts on

worker health, safety, and well-being,” as Alex Press reported for Jacobin. “In 2018, Walmart patented surveillance technology designed for management to eavesdrop on workers, track customer interactions, and oversee all employee movements,” Project Censored noted. “Amazon uses similar tracking methods, including a rating system that scores worker productivity, providing real-time feedback on individual workers’ speed and efficiency.” Oxfam’s report drew on quantitative data from worker surveys at both companies, as well as qualitative research interviews. “An Amazon worker in North Carolina compares the experience to Netflix’s Squid Game, stating that ‘Every three days, first responders are called to [our] facility. And when I say that it’s like [Squid Game], you see co-workers, you see friends, some workers have relatives, you see relatives who pass out, who are taken out of their facility on the stretcher,’” Press reported, adding, “If you get injured, a Walmart worker in California explains, it is ‘almost always your fault. Management would not negotiate this with you at all. You would be penalized for it because they would deem that you were working unsafe and ignore all the other possible reasons for why you got injured.’” Key findings included: Three-quarters (75% for Amazon, 74% for Walmart) of workers reported feeling pressure to work faster at least some of the time (compared to 58% industry-wide). More than half (54% for Amazon, 57% for Walmart) of workers reported that their production rate makes it hard for them to use the bathroom at least sometimes. Half of workers (52% at Amazon, 50% at Walmart) report feeling burned out from their work. 41% of Amazon workers and 91% of Walmart workers reported experiencing some level of dehydration over the past three months. “One might argue that unionizing could help workers resist surveillance,” Project Censored noted, but Amazon defeated a unionization effort in North Carolina in February 2025. However, “union organizers believe the vote was the result of Amazon’s nonstop intimidation of its employees,” and an academic study of an earlier organizing effort in Bessemer, Alabama, backs them up, as reported by The American Prospect in March 2025. “The company manipulated workplace devices to send workers anti-union messages and to ask questions that employees say were intended to assess their support for the union,” Project Censored summarized. “Amazon also monitored the social media activity of its employees—including Facebook groups, many of which were private, and subreddits— to investigate posts that contained complaints from warehouse workers or plans for strikes and protests.” “Amazon is not just tweaking pre-existing AI systems to make unionization harder to achieve for workers, but actually converting and weaponizing sprawling systems into new tools for quashing dissent,” the Prospect concluded. Aside from some coverage of these issues by independent and specialist news outlets, Project Censored noted, “there has been zero corporate media coverage of Amazon and Walmart’s surveillance and mistreatment of warehouse employees or of Oxfam’s ‘At Work and Under Watch’ report.”

Criminalizing homelessness doesn’t solve the problem — in fact, it makes things worse — but it does make some folks a lot of money. “In total, private firms have been paid at least $100m to clear homeless camps, an investigation by the Guardian and Type Investigations has found,” Brian Barth wrote for the Guardian on April 16, 2024. But that was a serious undercount, he hastened to add. “The 14 municipalities and public agencies from which spending details could be obtained represent a small slice of such spending in the state.” Still, the wastefulness was still obvious. “It can cost millions to clear a single camp. Marinship, a Bay Area construction company, received $3.4m to dismantle an unhoused community with about 200 residents,” Barth wrote. In Silicon Valley, Santa Clara signed a three-and-a-half-year, $1 million contract “despite having documented only 264 unsheltered residents at the time.” And it costs cities even more. “The police presence at one sweep in Los Angeles cost an estimated $2m,” he noted. As for what good it does, the answer is almost certainly none on two counts: It doesn’t reduce homelessness, but it does cause serious harm. “A 2024 RAND study found that policy change — such as encampment sweeps and camping bans — in three Los Angeles neighborhoods temporarily reduced visible homelessness, but within months the unsheltered populations rose slightly in two of the communities and doubled in the third,” Robbie Sequeira reported for Stateline in January 2025. At the same time, “For homeless people, these sweeps take an enormous toll,” Barth wrote. “Many unhoused residents report being swept over and over, often multiple times in a year. Modeling based on data collected in Boston has shown that hospitalization and death rates are expected to increase significantly among encampment residents after sweeps – researchers projected that overdoses would rise 30%, for instance.” In 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that punishing homeless people for sleeping outside doesn’t count as cruel or unusual punishment, which allowed police sweeps to confiscate any property belonging to people sleeping on the streets. Since then, “roughly 150 cities in 32 states have passed or strengthened such ordinances,” Sequeira reported, with another 40 in the works at the time. “Bans often allow for steep fines and jail time,” he noted, but “Criminalizing homelessness doesn’t solve the problem — it just punishes people, makes it harder for them to find housing or jobs, and keeps them stuck in a cycle of instability,” Samantha Batko of the Urban Institute explained. Homelessness is a worsening problem in Europe as well, the Guardian reported in September 2024, but Denmark and Finland are reducing it with a housing first policy, which shifts focus away from managing

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homelessness in the shelter system to solving it by providing housing. Finland started first, and has only a quarter of the number of homeless families it had in the early 2000s, and less than half the number of homeless individuals, with only a small fraction of those “unsheltered,” sleeping on the streets. So there are policies that work — they’re just not considered or reported on here. Instead, we have a massive new punitive industry dedicated to destroying lives already in peril. “While the national corporate media have not shied away from covering the nationwide displacement of homeless people, there has been virtually no coverage of companies profiteering from the homeless crisis in California or other states since Brian Barth’s investigation,” Project Censored noted.

U.S. police killed an average of nearly four people each day in 2024, disproportionately Black and Indigenous. Police killed more people in 2024 than in any year since 2013, when data collection began, and nearly two thirds were in response to 9/11 calls, the majority of which involved a non-violent offense, or no offense at all. These were some of the topline results of analysis by Mapping Police Violence reported by Sharon Zhang in a February 2025 Truthout article. “Police killed at least 1,365 people in 2024,” and “Black people in the U.S. were 2.9x more likely than White people to be killed by police,” Zhang wrote, and they “were more likely than white people to be killed when unarmed or not posing a threat. The disproportion was even greater for American Indians and Alaska Natives (3.1x) and for Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (7.6x) compared to White people.” There were only 10 days in 2024, “when police did not kill anyone in the U.S.” An earlier report covering 1,260 instances found that officers were only charged with crimes in nine cases. Zhang noted that these figures line up with reporting from the Washington Post that 2024 was the deadliest year on record for police violence, with 10,429 people killed by police in the last decade. However, the Post was discontinuing its tracking. “The change comes as the publication’s billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, has exerted an increasingly right-wing influence on the paper,” Zhang observed. This came at the same time that Trump shut down a federal database tracking misconduct by federal law enforcement officers, which had only been in existence since December 2023. “Mapping Police Violence was created by Samuel Sinyangwe, who is also the founder of Campaign Zero, an organization that advocates for a society not reliant on policing,” Project Censored noted. Its findings have been neglected by the establishment press, with two exceptions they cited: one USA Today story in February 2025, using its data “for a report on demographic and geographic patterns in police

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killings in the United States,” and a May 2025 New York Times story reporting that “police killings keep rising, not falling,” since the murder of George Floyd in 2020, touching off the Black Lives Matter protests, the largest civil rights protests in US history. Relatedly, “Routine police traffic stops often turn deadly, especially for people of color,” Project Censored noted, and this was the subject of another ignored investigation, specifically focused on the Chicago Police Department (CPD, carried out by Bolts and Injustice Watch and published in August 2024. A 2003 Illinois state law requires law enforcement agencies to report specific details of every traffic stop to the state Department of Transportation. But their investigation identified two hundred thousand unreported stops. “The significant number of undocumented traffic stops threatens to undermine any reform efforts and obscures the true impact of the police encounters from oversight groups, preventing them from fully understanding which drivers are stopped, and where in the city they are concentrated,” journalist Pascal Sabino explained. He had previously noted that these undocumented traffic stops amount to a new form of “stop-and-frisk,” a controversial practice that allows police to search persons, places and objects without making an arrest. CPD had officially moved away from using stop-and-frisk following the “botched investigation and cover-up” of the murder of teenager Laquan McDonald. But now, Chicago police “fish for guns and evidence of other crimes … by stopping cars rather than pedestrians,” Sabino wrote. While the New York Times and others have covered how routine police stops often turn deadly, Project Censored noted, there had been no coverage of this exposure of “the extraordinary number of illegal, undocumented traffic stops by Chicago police.”

Rising ocean temperature could lead to a tipping point in the melting of Antarctic ice sheets, potentially triggering “runaway melting,” according to a June 2024 article published in the journal Nature Geoscience, and supported by two other recent studies. Robert Hunzikera in CounterPunch and Matthew Rozsa in Salon each reported on this research, warning of potential “tipping points” in Antarctic ice melt. “Scientists have debated whether a ‘tipping point’ exists for this ice sheet, or a moment when the effects of this melting would be suddenly both irreversible and catastrophic,” according to Rozsa. “A new study raises the bet on sea level rise, maybe by a lot,” Hunzikera summed up. Drawing from recent evidence documenting that “relatively warm ocean water can intrude long distances” beneath the ice sheet and reach the grounding line — where the ice rises from the seabed and starts to float — the June Geoscience article warned that such “long

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intrusions have dramatic consequences for sea-level-rise contributions from ice sheets.” It proposed a new model accounting for these effects, which weren’t included in previous ice-sheet melting models. As Rozsa explained in Salon, When warm water moves under a grounding line, the ice melts at an accelerated pace and could pass a threshold where the body’s ultimate collapse is inevitable. While this process occurs, sea levels will rise at a much faster rate than currently predicted, resulting in millions of people from coastal communities being displaced over the upcoming decades and centuries. In addition, “new studies show that small increases in ocean temperatures can have a big impact on melting,” Hunziker wrote. “These new facts raise very serious concerns about all projections of sea level rise.” At the same time, ocean temperatures have been setting new records for over a year, and an earlier paper in Nature Geoscience offered stark evidence of how quickly massive ice loss could happen. Researchers examined a 2,000-footlong ice core and discovered that 8,000 years ago, at the end of the Ice Age, part of the ice sheet melted by 450 meters in about 200 years. “Antarctic ice meltdowns can happen much faster than current sea level studies assume,” Hunziker wrote.“Sea levels would begin to rise significantly in a matter of decades, rather than centuries, posing severe challenges for coastal cities, according to experts,” Project Censored summed up. Rozsa also cited a May 2024 study in the journal PNAS, which predicted that “Antarctica’s so-called ‘Doomsday Glacier’ is nearing collapse, as revealed by high-resolution satellite radar data that shows Thwaites [Glacier] is being flooded with warm sea water,” he explained. It’s “known as the ‘Doomsday Glacier’ because it could greatly contribute to sea level rise if it collapses,” he wrote in an earlier story. “And new evidence suggests that’s exactly what’s happening.” “To date, US corporate media have not covered these recent findings, especially Bradley and Hewitt’s model of grounding-zone melting of ice sheets,” Project Censored reported. “Independent outlets, including Salon and CounterPunch, have provided more substantial coverage of this study. Jessica Corbett of Common Dreams reported in February 2024 on the study that found evidence of rapid ice loss in the past, which CNN, the science news magazine Eos, and the environmental news site Earth.com also covered.”

People considered “working class” make up half the country’s labor force, but only 1.6% of state lawmakers, according to the 2024 results of a biennial study. That’s 116 of the nearly 7,400 state legislators, down from 1.8% in 2022. This seriously distorts the legislative process, both in terms of issues considered and

solutions proposed, as noted in a March 15, 2024, Stateline article by Robbie Sequeira. “The only person that’s going to advocate for working-class people is a working-class person,” said freshman Idaho state Rep. Nate Roberts, a lifelong electrician. “Government works best when all types of personal experience are at the legislative table,” said Minnesota state Rep. Kaela Berg, a flight attendant who ran for office while living in a friend’s basement. “I knew that I was uniquely able to speak on issues that my other colleagues never experienced.” The study by political scientists Nicholas Carnes and Eric Hansen defined “working class” as “those who have currently or last worked in manual labor, the service industry, clerical, or labor union jobs,” representing 2% of Democrats and 1% of Republicans. Ten states have “no working-class state lawmakers.” Some members of the Utah legislature (which includes police officers and teachers) objected to the characterization that they had no working-class members, but a 2024 Guardian op-ed explained that even including professionals like teachers and nurses, the number of working-class Democrats would still be under 6%. “Low salaries for working-class jobs are one reason why members of the working class rarely run for office,” Project Censored noted. Amanda Litman, co-founder of Run for Something, which recruits candidates for down-ballot races, also cited a lack of access to money from family or partners, as well as gatekeepers who typically recruit candidates based on their independent money-raising ability. Making things worse, only five states allow public financing options for state legislative candidates. In Idaho, as a lone voice, Roberts spoke out against labor rollbacks “such as a Senate bill that would repeal limits on the number of hours and how late in the day a child under the age of 16 can work,” Sequeira reported. Pushback for opposing regressive child labor laws still shocked him, Roberts said. In Minnesota, conditions were far more favorable. Berg helped pass the Minnesota Miracle, which included a major package of labor-friendly laws as well as a slew of tenant-landlord laws with renter protections. “Berg said the backgrounds of working-class legislators like herself can inform statehouse conversations, even if lawmakers with different backgrounds support pro-labor policies,” Sequeira noted. In contrast, Project Censored notes the over-representation of wealth in our politics: the majority of the members of the 116th Congress were millionaires, with the 10 richest having estimated fortunes in excess of $30 million. There’s a new move to change things, Project Censored noted: the formation of a political action committee called the Working Class Heroes Fund, aimed at organizing working-class voters and funding working-class candidates “across party lines to give the working class a seat at the table.” It was started by Dan Osborn, a pipe-fitter and union leader, who ran a surprisingly strong race for a U.S. Senate seat in Nebraska as an independent in 2024. While there’s been no national corporate news coverage of the study on the class background of state legislators, there has been occasional mention in opinion pieces in both the New York Times and the Washington Post.

ARTS & CULTURE Going MAD

A Cincinnati Art Museum exhibit explores the artistry of the iconic satire publication MAD Magazine. BY N A DYA E L L E R H O RST

mily Agricola Holtrop didn’t grow up a MAD reader, but the Cincinnati Art Museum’s director of learning & interpretation doesn’t view that as a prerequisite for getting something out of the institution’s latest exhibition. On view at CAM through March 1, What, Me Worry? The Art and Humor of MAD Magazine dives into the decades-long history and impact of the iconic satirical magazine and explores the multilayered artistry behind it. “If you like cartoons, if you like comics, if you like illustration, if you’re open-minded, if you like satire… if you like humor, I think you’re gonna get something out of it,” Holtrop says. MAD Magazine — still in publication today — got its start as a comic book in 1952. In the seven decades since its founding, the humor magazine has become iconic for its illustration-based parodies, spoofs and pointed satire. With a team known to this day as the “Usual Gang of Idiots,” MAD Magazine has churned out iconic imagery likely recognizable to readers and non-readers alike. The exhibition originates from the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. What, Me Worry? was curated by the museum’s chief curator and Rockwell Center Director Stephanie Haboush Plunkett and satirical illustrator and caricaturist Steve Brodner. It found its way from New England to the Midwest following a visit by CAM Director

Cameron Kitchin, who was impressed by the exhibition. Holtrop, the onsite curator and project lead for What, Me Worry?, oversaw exhibition set-up and implementation at CAM. “As a museum educator, my role at the museum is to tell stories and to bring out the stories the art tells,” Holtrop says. “The works in this exhibition tell so many interesting stories, not only about the history of MAD, but also the major historical moments and cultural movements and social movements that have happened in the last 70 years since MAD has been around.” In those seven decades, MAD has evolved from a rebellious comic to one of the most recognizable publications to spread critical commentary through humor. What, Me Worry? will include original work from a variety of MAD artists, with a particular focus on the ways in which the magazine tackled the times it found itself in in singular MAD fashion. Holtrop stresses the opportunity that lies within the inherent “multi-generational” character of the exhibition. Given the long tenure of MAD Magazine, Holtrop envisions grandparents and grandchildren taking in the exhibition in tandem with each other. The exhibition also explores the tangible, collaborative artistic processes behind magazine and comic production – the development of an “idea from concept to completion,” in the words

Peter Kuper; Spy vs. Spy [Museum], 2007 illustration for MAD

©Randomlengthsnews, San Pedro, CA 2025

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Norman Mingo (1896-1980); Help Stamp Out MAD, 1963; MAD #78; April 1963 A RT: C O U RT E SY O F M A D

of Holtrop. She points to the process drawings and mark-up lines visible in many of the paper artifacts on display. Among the over 150 pieces in the exhibition, a highlight is a spoof of Norman Rockwell’s “Triple Self-Portrait” by Richard Williams placed alongside Rockwell original, a clear nod to this exhibition’s institution of origin. Among other artifacts, visitors can also witness the

evolution of MAD Magazine mascot, Alfred E. Neuman, over time, and try their hand at creating their own MAD cover. And there’s more to take in beyond technical precision within the work on display. Holtrop emphasizes the need to pause and consider punchlines that aren’t always immediately apparent in some of the tongue-in-cheek pieces – there’s much to be found in the details, making this exhibition almost inherently interactive. “You really have to read and stop and look because there’s a lot of, like, delayed laughter.” While satirical illustration may not be the first discipline that comes to mind when thinking of the notion of “art,” Holtrop stresses the complex nature of the genre, including caricature. “To be able to capture someone’s likeness, and in a manner so that you still know what that person looks like, but it’s still somewhat of a caricature – that’s artistry.” She also draws parallels to major art movements of yesteryear. Holtrop compares the collaborative process between MAD artists and writers to the processes of “the great Dutch masters” and their apprentices. It’s also a discipline that Holtrop thinks audiences will find especially approachable in a museum that’s already meant for them. “The museum is the community’s art museum, so it is really our responsibility to show all kinds of art, not just fine art. And illustration is something that so many people are really familiar with, and it is a really good way to get people excited about coming to the museum.” What, Me Worry? The Art and Humor of MAD Magazine will be on display at the Cincinnati Art Museum through March 1. More info: cincinnatiartmuseum.org.

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CULTURE

FOOD Eats Briefs & DRINK

Arts & Culture Briefs

The latest arts & culture stories in Greater Cincinnati

The latest food and dining stories in Greater Cincinnati

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new cocktail bar in downtown Cincinnati is launching a new weekly dinner series aimed at crafting the perfect girls’ night out. On Thursday, Dec. 18, Prim launched “Girl Dinner,” a dinner series that pairs elevated small plates with classic cocktails and a curated soundtrack from vinyl DJs. The menu will feature a rotation of shareable and bite-sized dishes like finger sandwiches and caviar with chips and crème fraîche, as well as signature cocktails made with Ketel One and Nolet’s, including the Classic Martini, Cosmopolitan and Lemon Drop Martini. Happy hour pricing will also be available throughout Girl Dinner. DJs will spin throughout the evening, creating a warm and stylish vibe that is intentional and creates an ideal backdrop for conversation and connection, says Prim. “Girl Dinner is all about easy elegance, good food, great vibes and a space that feels inviting and celebratory,” Adammichael Gessell, director of hospitality at Prim, said in a press release. “We’re thrilled to offer a fresh, stylish Thursday experience for Cincinnatians to gather, relax and enjoy the energy of downtown.” Girl Dinner will run every Thursday and walk-ins are welcome.

Midwestern Lesbian co-owners Caitlin Dunkley and Kelsey Ference outside their new office at 1447 Walnut St. in Over-the-Rhine P H O T O : P R O V I D E D BY 3 C D C

LGBTQ+ Community Platform Midwestern Lesbian to Open Office Space in Over-the-Rhine

community platform that helps connect Greater Cincinnati’s LGBTQ+ community through events will soon have an official office in Over-the-Rhine. Midwestern Lesbian has signed a lease for a space at 1447 Walnut St. in 3CDC’s Willkommen Development and is planning a grand opening with close friends and family in early 2026. The team has been operating from COhatch near Findlay Market for almost a year. Kelsey Ference co-founded Midwestern Lesbian in 2021 with her partner, Caitlin Dunkley, to create a resource for the LGBTQ+ community, especially the Sapphic community, to find inclusive events across the Midwest. It’s since grown into a community platform that focuses on fostering meaningful connections through events, collaborative initiatives and a storytelling approach to social media.

“In 2021, I was creating an events calendar for a local brewery, and I realized there wasn’t a calendar of events for the local queer community to discover things to do in the area,” Ference said in a press release. “I started researching and discovered there are an estimated 70,000 bars in the U.S. Of those, only about 800 are gay bars — and just 36 are dedicated lesbian bars. When I learned that, I knew I wanted to create a safe, intentional space for Sapphic individuals. Too often, men dominate queer spaces, and the Sapphic community deserves places and events designed specifically for them.” Midwestern Lesbian has since expanded into hosting its own events, including bar crawls, speed dating, karaoke nights and drag shows, and uses the platform to promote those. Ference and Dunkley also started Cincy Gay Agenda as a space for

sharing all local queer happenings. “3CDC has always been intentional about cultivating a diverse, inclusive mix of businesses in OTR storefronts, and we’re thrilled to welcome Midwestern Lesbian to the neighborhood,” said Christy Samad, executive vice president of Civic & Commercial Space Activation at 3CDC. “We’ve had the privilege of partnering with Kelsey and Caitlin on numerous events in the civic spaces we manage, and we fully support their mission to make Cincinnati a safe, welcoming place for LGBTQ+ individuals.” After Midwestern Lesbian’s office opens, anyone is welcome to stop in to learn more or access LGBTQ+ resources. The team also plans to host small events in the space. Midwestern Lesbian, 1447 Walnut St., Over-the-Rhine. More info: midwesternlesbian.com.

Cincinnati Regional Chamber Announces Dates for its 2026 Festivals

ime to get excited, Cincinnati: the Cincinnati Regional Chamber has announced the dates for its 2026 festivals: Asian Food Fest, Taste of Cincinnati and Oktoberfest Zinzinnati. “These festivals are not just events. They are occasions for families, friends, and neighbors to mingle, enjoy delicious food, and celebrate the vibrant culture that Cincinnati has to offer. Each festival draws tens of thousands of attendees, fostering a deep sense of belonging and community pride,” the Chamber said in a press release. Asian Food Fest, produced in partnership with Asianati, is the first in the lineup, returning to Court Street Plaza Saturday-Sunday, April 25-26, for its 15th year. Last year, the festival attracted around 120,000 people, and it continues to be one of Cincinnati’s fastest-growing and most

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culturally diverse events, with over 60 food vendors representing more than 15 countries. Coming back Memorial Day weekend is Taste of Cincinnati, which features dishes from some of Cincinnati’s best restaurants, food trucks and other food vendors. The ultimate Cincinnati food festival is happening Saturday-Monday, May 23-25. You’ll be able to find the festival on Fifth Street in downtown Cincinnati. Fast forward to September for the biggest Oktoberfest celebration outside Germany: Oktoberfest Zinzinnati. Come celebrate Southwest Ohio’s rich German heritage from Thursday-Sunday, Sept. 17-20. The festival will return to Sawyer Point and Yeatman’s Cove this year, and special events are being planned for its golden jubilee. “These festivals are where Cincinnati

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shines brightest,” said Chelsea York, vice president of Events and Experiences at the Cincinnati Regional Chamber. “They’re designed for everyone — kids, grandparents, foodies, music lovers — if you love fun, you belong here!” Over 160 local businesses participated in the Chamber’s festivals in 2025, and the festivals saw nearly 2 million visitors combined and raised more than $355,000 for local charities. The Chamber is looking for vendors for all 2026 festivals. Applications will be available on Jan. 7, and the priority vendor application deadline is Jan. 22. Those who apply by this date will receive first consideration for spots at the event. The Chamber is also looking for sponsors for each festival. Learn more about sponsorship opportunities at cincinnatichamber.com.

Greater Cincinnati’s Largest Free Board Game Convention Returns This January

alling all board game, cards and RPG enthusiasts: AdamCon, Cincinnati’s largest free board game convention, will return this January for a full weekend of fun, with some new attractions and events to enjoy. AdamCon will be held Friday-Monday, Jan. 16-19 at the Woodlawn Community Center. At the convention, guests can play from over 400 games in the game library and take part in a variety of events. There will also be food vendors selling snacks, drinks and meals. New in 2026, the convention will offer giant-scale versions of fan-favorite board games and a dedicated video game zone with arcade machines, retro systems and modern consoles. There is also a new cosplay component, with a judged competition open to all ages. AdamCon 2026 will offer a big lineup of tournaments, and competitive players can join multiple events, including an official Catan National Qualifier. It’s also the first stop on the new Tri-State Trail Tournament, which will allow players an early chance to earn points on the circuit. AdamCon is again raising money for Cincinnati Children’s Hospital through its raffle. In 2025, the convention raised more than $28,000 for the hospital through its raffle and nearly $67,000 since 2020. You can also donate to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital through AdamCon’s Extra Life profile here if you are unable to make the convention but still want to donate. AdamCon runs from 6 p.m. to midnight Friday, 10 a.m. to midnight Saturday and Sunday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday. Woodlawn Community Center, 10050 Woodlawn Blvd., Woodlawn. More info on AdamCon: theadamcon.com.

Downtown Cincinnati Cocktail Bar Prim Launches ‘Girl Dinner’ Series

Prim, 70 W. Fifth St., Downtown P H O T O : R O S S VA N P E LT

Prim, 70 W. Fifth St., Downtown. More info: primon5th.com.

Skyline Chili to Open Fountain Square Restaurant and Taproom

ne of Cincinnati’s most iconic restaurant chains is moving into the heart of downtown Cincinnati. Skyline Chili announced on Dec. 18 that it will open a restaurant and taproom on Fountain Square. “Fountain Square is the heartbeat of Cincinnati, and Skyline has always been about bringing people together,” Dick Williams, Skyline’s CEO, said in a press release. “Fountain Square is where the downtown workforce gathers for

lunch during the day and families and friends gather for food and entertainment at night. We also welcome many out-of-town visitors to our strengthening downtown core and hope they make Skyline Chili a part of their Cincinnati experience.” Skyline signed a lease for the former March First Brewing space between Potbelly and City Bird at The Eateries at Fifth Third Center and plans to open in the spring. In addition to its

menu of ways, coneys and more, the Fountain Square location will also feature Skyline’s first-ever beer and wine bar, plus a private party room, large dining room and a dedicated carryout and delivery space. The brand says the move to Fountain Square reinforces its 75-plus-year connection to Cincinnati and the community and will provide a central gathering space for residents, visitors and sports fans attending games in the city’s core.

“We are excited to welcome Skyline Chili to Fountain Square,” said Thomas Ross, director of corporate real estate for Fifth Third. “This hometown favorite will be a wonderful addition to the existing local businesses at The Eateries at Fifth Third Center, as we work to create a welcoming and vibrant dining experience for everyone who visits Fountain Square.”

do — it’s truly what makes this work great,” said Brad Rogers, vice president of business development at Buckeye Construction & Restoration.

announcement of the American Museum of Brewing, a national museum to open in OTR in 2028 that will share the history of beer in the United States, as well as highlight OTR’s rich brewing heritage. “The museum will be a great addition to the neighborhood, and visitors to the American Museum of Brewing will certainly want to work in a visit to the mural as well,” added Bankovich. The mural is now available for the public to view. The brewery told CityBeat that its planned renovation won’t impact the mural and that it has been working with the Cincinnati Museum Center to get historical background and images of it from the time of its installation.

More info: skylinechili.com.

Rhinegeist Uncovers Historic Tile Mosaic During Renovation

piece of history that’s been hidden away for over a hundred years was revealed recently as Rhinegeist Brewery works on renovations to its building’s façade. Rhinegeist is housed in the former bottling plant of the pre-Prohibition Christian Moerlein brewery on Elm Street in Overthe-Rhine (OTR). The brewery says that while the historic building features a number of unique architectural features, they weren’t expecting to uncover a well-preserved, early-20th-century encaustic tile mosaic during the rehab of the building. The mosaic had been covered by layers of paint for decades. “We were cleaning the walls to prep for tuckpointing when some of the old, peeling paint came off,” Vince Vickers, superintendent at Buckeye Construction

& Restoration, the company doing Rhinegeist’s renovation work, said in a press release. “Underneath, we noticed colors that looked like part of a drawing. We started pulling off more of the paint, and little by little, the century-old mural began to show itself — hidden in plain sight for decades.” The creator of the mosaic mural, Herman Mueller, was a famed American ceramicist and the founder of the Mueller Mosaic Company in Trenton, New Jersey. His work can be seen in several museums along the East Coast, including the New Jersey State Museum, Newark Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Smithsonian Institution and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “It’s not every day you get to open a time capsule into another era. Discoveries like this remind us why we love what we

The colorful mural features the words “Moerlein’s Bottling Dept.” and “1896,” as well as a woman and a man with a hat. Rhinegeist CEO Adam Bankovich says the man’s hat features an interesting anomaly: the corner was installed 90 degrees in the wrong orientation. “We brewed a pre-Prohibition-style lager to celebrate the mural’s discovery, and named it Tip of the Hat as a nod to this easter egg,” said Bankovich. Tip of the Hat is available on draft in the Rhinegeist taproom for a limited time. The discovery of the mural also follows the Brewing Heritage Trail’s September

Rhinegeist, 1910 Elm St., Over-the-Rhine. More info: rhinegeist.com.

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MUSIC

Roger Klug Power Trio P H OTO : M I C H A E L T IT T E L

Power Play

Roger Klug resurrects the Power Trio with an archive live album and renewed passion. BY B R I A N BA K E R

nce upon a time, Roger Klug was one of the kings of Cincinnati power pop. His brief stints with the Willies and the Tritones, among others, paved the way for the Detroit native/Cincinnati resident’s stellar solo career. This solo career started with 1995’s home-recorded Mama, Mama, Ich bin dem La La Land, then the full-blown splendor of 1997’s Toxic and 15 Other Love Songs, followed by the Guided-By-Pollard brilliance of 1999’s Where Has the Music Gone?: The Lost Recordings of Clem Comstock, where Klug and a smattering of friends crafted a compilation of fictional bands across a disparate range of musical genres, all under the auspices of the album’s titular and completely mythological producer/ songwriter. “That’s the most fun I’ve ever had making an album,” says Klug over omelets at Café Alma. “There was a little of the alter ego thing going on with that. My memory of that was sitting on my side porch, no guitar in hand, just a big notebook, hearing the record in my head, grabbing lyrics out of the air. That was a really great feeling. I never felt so prolific.” Although the gigging never stopped, it would be a decade before Klug dropped his fourth studio album, 2009’s superb More Help For Your Nerves. (It’s worth noting that Klug created his own label, Mental Giant, and self-released his entire catalog.) Klug and his self-proclaimed Power Trio, featuring bassist Greg Tudor and drummer Mike Tittel, supported Nerves into the following year, to a certain extent. “We were performing as the trio at that point, but we didn’t have it together enough,” says Klug. “I remember thinking we could play almost all of those songs live, but it didn’t have as much piano as Toxic, and it certainly didn’t have the horns and strings like Clem Comstock.”

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At a certain juncture in 2010, Klug’s profile in local music became virtually non-existent. So what occupied Klug’s time and attention when he stepped away from music? “Raising a family, earning a living, teaching at CCM,” says Klug. “It takes up a lot of time, I won’t lie. And sometimes when you’re doing other musical stuff, it does take away your own musical energy. That is a pitfall. At one point, I’d quit the music business and I was going back to school to be an accountant. So while I was reading intriguing accounting books, I was like, ‘I’m going to record this now.’ COVID did kind of deflate my live situation, but I was still able to do stuff with the Cincinnati Symphony because we were all masked up and socially distanced.” Klug was also drawn back into music by way of Tittel’s own project, New Sincerity Works. It was a satisfyingly easy gig for him for one simple reason. “It was a segment of my life working on other people’s projects,” says Klug. “The pressure is almost off. I’m not worried about the vocal or the song. You don’t think, ‘I want to play something good,’ because that’s a given. You just kind of respond to it: ‘This will make it sound better,’ or ‘Where is the space I can occupy where the mixing engineer will turn me up?’ Mike wasn’t like, ‘Hey, I want this,’ he was like, ‘Just play.’ Mike’s very much an art director in his professional and creative life, but he’s also smart enough to let people do what they do.” The wheel began to turn back in a familiar direction earlier this year when Klug accepted an invitation to play a benefit for the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. The concert’s theme was Bob Dylan, an artist near and dear to Klug, so he was determined to make the most of it. “It was one of those deals where people were picking songs from Facebook or whatever, so

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I nabbed ‘Simple Twist of Fate,’ because that’s one of my all-time faves,” Klug says. “We did that one pretty faithfully, kind of like Jason Isbell or Wilco would do it. Then I noticed that no one had taken ‘Lay Lady Lay,’ so we did this whacked version of it, as if the Cure were performing, then we mashed it up with ‘Bob Dylan’s Blues’ as Greta Van Fleet-doing-Led Zeppelin would have done it. And it went over really well; we had the crowd, and it was really gratifying. That was the catalyst.” The next occurrence was a bit of technological serendipity. Klug was rummaging through an old hard drive and he stumbled upon an offthe-board recording he had made of a Power Trio show at the Northside Tavern a decade ago. It was a document of a time when the band was playing every three or four months at the Tavern, and they had gotten fairly tight after their layoff. “I had kind of dismissed the recording,” says Klug. “It was just a snapshot of the band. And off-the-board tapes are very isolated; there’s a certain claustrophobic sound. If I could turn back time, (he channels Cher at this point), I would have put up a couple of ambient mics to catch the sound of the room. But instead of listening to the micro of it — ‘Oh, missed that guitar lick’ or ‘That vocal take was a little short’ — I listened to the macro of it. And I thought, ‘This is pretty cool.’” Realizing that this recording represented a period just after the Trio had reconvened, and that there were few surviving audio artifacts from that time, Klug made the decision that this show should be the Power Trio’s first live album. “It was like when you get a weird idea,” recalls Klug. “I thought, ‘I want people to hear this.’ Then you immediately self-doubt it. Then you run it by your mates, like ‘I’m thinking about

putting this out,’ and they don’t say anything at first, and you’re like, ‘What’s their deal?’” Eventually, everyone was on board with the release, and thus was born the Roger Klug Power Trio’s first live album, the two-disc triumph, Live! Off the Board. (“The working title was Naked and Unashamed (Without No Clothes)...”) There were several considerations that sealed the decision. “Mike and I have talked a lot about recording an album being boring, because everyone does it the same way and has the same plug-ins, and everything is so scrubbed and perfect,” says Klug. “How do you fight AI? How do you fight perfection? What better way than to put out a live thing that wasn’t even meant to be a release? Was it an A+ performance? No. But there’s weird stuff in there, like a couple of songs we only played that one time. And we played the Kinks song, ‘Johnny Thunder.’ I have no memory of whose idea that was. If we were going to play something from Village Green, I’d have wanted to play ‘Big Sky.’ Plus that was the only RKPT gig where I dragged a piano to it. We had a Wurlitzer onstage, and that’s the only time we ever did that.” With the Jan. 10 show at the Northside Tavern and the Feb. 28 gig at MOTR Pub, the Roger Klug Power Trio has officially ended its hiatus. Klug makes no bones about the path forward for the band. “There’s too much stuff that I’m sitting on that’s half finished,” he says. “The live unit is playing again, so there’s a compelling reason for it all. We don’t really have a sound because I’ve always been here, there and everywhere. I recorded a yacht rock song, and Mike and Greg play on it, and I’m toying with the idea of releasing it as our first return release, just to thoroughly confuse everyone. ‘This is our new sound. We went away to work on our mental health.’ Anyway, we shan’t be going away again for a while.” The Roger Klug Power Trio plays Northside Tavern on Jan. 10 at 8:30 p.m. More info: northsidetav.com.

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